As part of Manu’s 3-day Virginia Tech’s residence, in addition to rehearsing with L2Ork, Manu Delago will also present a talk and a master class for students, faculty, as well as community members. Below is the schedule breakdown:

Yep, it is that time of the year and L2Ork is getting ready for our first mini-tour of the 2012 with following performances and presentations:

February 19th @5pm — University of Maryland Baltimore County
February 20th @12pm — Rutgers University
February 21st @12pm — Temple University
February 21st @2:30pm — A talk at Community College of Philadelphia

Some of the PRis alreadyup, so please make sure to check it out for more detailed info on the events. Hope to see you there!

Apart from the frantic tour preparations, things have been particularly busy on the recruitment front. L2Ork has again grown to over dozen members, many of whom have joined us less than a month ago. Needless to say, last couple of weeks were quite intense as everyone worked hard to get up to speed with the L2Ork repertoire. There are also a number of exciting announcements we would like to make, pertaining to our Spring itinerary as well as other related developments. So, as we work towards our next blog, here’s a quick update for pd-l2ork users. Pd-l2ork now features regular releases of both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. A bunch of updates have been made to improve responsiveness of the user interface and to squash a few lingering bugs and regressions and the latest version released earlier today is making its way online as I write this. I am particularly proud of the fact that pd-l2ork has been rock solid in terms of stability for over a year in rehearsals and performances alike. So, head over to our software page for more info…

Eleven days behind us and another eleven to go, today marks the midpoint of the tour. Having performed last night at Hamburg’s Academy of Music and Theater as part of the Blurred Edges Festival, we are using one day to catch-up with sleep and follow-up on outstanding matters. For one, I spent a better part of today producing long overdue L2Ork performance videos. Consequently, we got seven new videos ready out of which four have been already uploaded onto the DISIS YouTube channel. Similarly, we’ve been trying to consolidate tour photos which should be finding their way onto the media and facebook pages hopefully soon. Tomorrow morning, we head to Amsterdam. On the 24th we have a workshop at STEIM, followed by two performances, in Amsterdam on 25th, and Utrecht on 26th. Stay tuned for more updates soon!

I cannot help but chuckle at the mysterious ubiquity of number 13 in our Friday’s arrival to Linz, Austria: 13 l2orkists flew on Friday the 13th with the last leg leaving Frankfurt at 13h (1pm)–prime number bonanza, to say the least. Going through the TSA checkpoints with our hemi speakers has been, well, an adventure :-). But, in the end, it all worked out just fine. In the process, we even got a great idea for our next poster…

Yesterday, still under heavy jet lag, L2Ork held a 3-hour workshop, followed by a 9pm performance as part of the LiWoLi festival. Our concert was complemented by Martin Kaltenbrunner’s improv on the cool Reactable (many thanks Martin!). Footage to follow hopefully soon. Our engagement as part of LiWoLi has been covered by two Austrian technology-oriented newssites.

Today, after another night with less than 3 hours of sleep we got up early to catch a 7am train to Ljubljana where we arrived seven hours later. Despite being long, the train ride was really comfortable and going through the Alps was awe inspiring (at least for those who managed to stay awake). Later this evening at 9pm, we will be performing at Kino Šiška.

P.S. I was also really pleased to have found our custom L2Ork bags living up to their expectations of not only fitting perfectly in the overhead compartment of three different jam-packed airplanes, but also under the seat. Yay! ;-)

To keep up with our latest blog bits, check us out on our Facebook page.

I guess holding off on the big announcement any longer would be simply uncivilized ;-), so here it goes…

After 8 months of planning, fundraising a metric ton of greenbacks, and literally thousands of hours of hard work distributed across dozens of souls, L2Ork is truly excited to announce our maiden tour of Europe May 12 – June 1, 2011. Joining forces with our guest soloist Ron Coulter and our talented soprano l2orkist Aurora Martin, the ensemble will be touring 7 countries, performing and holding workshops in following locations:

I cannot thank enough to all who have generously contributed their precious time and helped us make this opportunity a reality: Ron Coulter, Robin Gareus, Marc Groenewegen, l2orkists, as well as our Stakeholders, both new and old who have played critical role in meeting the needs of our formidable budget.

So, there you have it! The cat is finally out of the bag :-). Hope to see you at one of our upcoming destinations! In the meantime, to stay up-to-date with the latest developments join our facebook page.